Thursday, 7 September 2017

When MK Narayanan stalled Siachen deal, IFTIKHAR GILANI

In his forthcoming part-history-part-memoir titled How
India Sees the World, Shyam Saran has claimed that he and his Pakistani
counterpart Riaz Mohammad Khan were close to breakthrough

In 2006, the stage was set between India and Pakistan to
clinch a deal over the issue of Siachen — the world's highest battlefield where
the climate has claimed more lives than gunfire — but the process was scuttled
by India's then National Security Advisor (NSA) MK Narayanan, former Foreign
Secretary Shyam Saran has claimed.

In his forthcoming part-history-part-memoir titled How
India Sees the World, Saran has claimed that he and his Pakistani counterpart
Riaz Mohammad Khan were close to breakthrough. He has claimed that the deal was
even consented by the Indian Army, and mentioned its finer points, including
current positions of the forces of the two countries, the positions to which
they would withdraw, a schedule for redeployment, and a joint monitoring mechanism
to prevent mutual intrusions. All this would have been recorded in an annexure
to the main agreement.

In their tumultuous relations, India and Pakistan had
already missed two possible deals on the Himalayan territory — located as high
as 20,000 feet above sea level — in 1989 and 1992.

"To give the document additional strength, we
insisted, and the Pakistani side agreed, that both the agreement and the
annexure will be signed, and that the main agreement will explicitly declare
that the annexure had the same legal validity as the agreement itself,"
records Saran, who also worked as adviser to then Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh.

Prime Minister Singh, who was keen on the agreement had
directed the Foreign Secretary to obtain a consensus from all key stakeholders.
"I did many rounds of consultations, both at the senior bureaucratic and
ministerial levels in the ministries of defence, home and finance (whose
members are part of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS)," he said.

Saran claimed that then Army Chief General JJ Singh and
the chiefs of all intelligence agencies were also brought on board.

The deal was consented by the Army and its intricate
technical details including the points and timing of redeployment and also the
phases in which it would have been implemented and the structure of the
monitoring mechanism were actually worked out by the Director-General Of
Military Operations.

After all this exercise, when approval from the CCS was
seen as a mere formality, the deal was aborted after Narayanan launched a
bitter offensive. The draft agreement, along with the annexures, had been put
together in a note to the CCS for approval so that it could be presented as a
proposal from the Indian side at the India–Pakistan Defence Secretary-level
talks scheduled for May 2006. The note had been examined and agreed to by all
relevant stakeholders and agencies. The CCS approval was, therefore, expected
to come as a matter of course.

"When the CCS meeting was held on the eve of the
Defence Secretary-level talks, the NSA launched an offensive, saying that
Pakistan could not be trusted, and that there will be political and public
opposition to any such initiative and that India's military position in the
northern sector vis-à-vis both Pakistan and China will be compromised. General
Singh, who had happily gone along with the proposal in its earlier iterations,
now decided to join Narayanan in rubbishing it," records Saran in the
book.

In the meeting, Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Defence
Minister Pranab Mukherjee decided to play it safe and proposed the deferment of
its consideration until further study. The Prime Minister, who was keen to see
the deal through, chose to keep silent. In the ensuing exchange of words,
Narayanan, went further suggesting that Siachen be taken off the agenda of
India–Pakistan talks entirely and that this should be communicated to the
visiting Pakistani Defence Secretary at forthcoming talks. At this stage,
Mukherjee stepped in to support Saran. He pointed out that Rajiv Gandhi himself
had agreed to include Siachen in the India–Pakistan dialogue.

Saran recalls that in 2007, when he visited a couple of
high-altitude posts at the Siachen Glacier as part of a border infrastructure
survey, he informally asked stationed officers it they would support a mutual
withdrawal by India and Pakistan from the glacier. "The answer was an
unqualified yes. I then asked whether we could risk Pakistani occupation of the
area vacated by us. The officers replied that nothing better could happen
because the Pakistanis would suffer 'what we have been going through these past
several years," he records in the book. The opportunity to finally resolve
a long-standing issue and a constant source of bitterness in Pakistan was lost.

Saran has also referred to Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf's back channel and confidential talks
on Kashmir at their January 2004 meeting in Islamabad, which continued during
Manmohan Singh's era as well. He also mentions another tiff with Narayanan,
when he tried to rock the boat of the Indo-US nuclear deal. Even though being
chief negotiator, Narayanan had excluded him from an apex committee consisting
of the Department Of Atomic Energy and PMO officials.

"It often turned out that I was negotiating with William Burns on
one side and the PMO on the other. Narayanan became the interlocutor between
the negotiating team and the DAE, which seemed to be convinced that we were
about to sell the store to the Americans," he added.

About Me

Dr Shabir Choudhry has done extensive research on the issue of Kashmir and Indo Pakistan relations. He passed BA Honours in Politics and History, and Mphil in International Relations (title of the thesis, ‘Kashmir and Partition of India’); and title of his PhD thesis is ‘Kashmir- An issue of a nation not a dispute of a land’.

Apart from this Dr Shabir Choudhry passed Post Graduates Certificates in Education, and NVQ Assessor’s qualifications; and taught English in London.

Political Achievements

Founder member of JKLF (Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front established in 1977) and got elected as a Press Secretary in 1984.

Became its Secretary General in 1985, and resigned from this post in 1996.

Got elected President of JKLF and Europe in May 1999, and decided not to contest in elections of July 2001.

Said good - bye to the JKLF as it is in many groups and is largely seen as advancing a Pakistani agenda on Kashmir dispute, and set up a new party Kashmir National Party in May 2008.

.

At present, he is:

·Spokesman Kashmir National Party and Director Diplomatic Committee;

·Spokesman for International KashmirAlliance;

·Founder member and Director Institute of Kashmir Affairs;

Previously

·A founder Member and Trustee/ Director of London based registered charity, Kashmir Foundation International and resigned from this position in August 2001.

·Regularly take part in the Sessions of the UN Human Rights (Commission) now Council in Geneva; and address various conferences and seminars to oppose violence and highlight the Kashmir cause.

·Participated in a Round Table Conference on Kashmir, organised by Socialist Group of European Parliament in Brussels in 1993.

·Addressed as a Chief Guest in a seminar on issue of Mangla Dam during the UN Sub Commission’s proceedings in August 2003.

·Addressed as a key - note speaker in a seminar on the issue of Gilgit and Baltistan, organised by Association of British Kashmiris.

·Addressed as a keynote speaker on human rights conference in Paris in 1991.

·Addressed at CambridgeUniversity as a Chief Guest in a conference on Kashmir in 1990.

·Addressed as a keynote speaker at New Delhi conference on Kashmir, which was part of Track Two diplomacy in November 2000.

·In September 2008, addressed a Conference arranged by Interfaith International in Geneva, topic of which was:“Kashmir Issue, Terrorism and Human Rights”.

·Addressed as a speaker in a NGO Conference on Self - Determination in Geneva in August 2000.

·Addressed as a keynote speaker in a fringe meeting of Liberal Democrats at their Annual Conference in Brighton in 1995.

·Participated in World Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993.

·Before President Clinton's visit to India and Pakistan in 2000, lead a JKLF delegation to the State Department to discuss Kashmir dispute and situation in South Asia.

·Also had two rounds of meetings with senior State Department officials before President Musharraf’s meeting to Washington in June 2003.

·Apart from that had meetings with senior officials including Ministers of different countries, and also held many meetings with the State Department and Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials on number of occasions.

·Played important role in advancing a Kashmiri perspective on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir; and also helped Baroness Emma Nicholson with her report ‘Kashmir: present situation and future prospects’, which was adopted by the European Parliament in May 2007.

·Won first prize in an essay competition in Urdu in 1976. It was organised by High Commission of Pakistan in London, and title of the essay was 'Qaaid-e- Azam's role in Islamic History'.

·Apart from that have addressed conferences in Brussels, Geneva, Toronto, Islamabad, Delhi, and

Publications

·Got first Urdu novel ‘Fareena’ published at the age of eighteen.

·Second Urdu novel ‘Bay-Khataa’ which was about the problems of Asian youths living in UK published in 1983.

·Third Urdu book ‘Pakistan and Kashmiri struggle for independence’ published in 1990.

·Fourth Urdu book is also on Kashmiri struggle, 'Is an independent Kashmir a conspiracy?'

·Apart from that has twenty books and booklets published in English on various aspects of the Kashmiri struggle.

·Recent publications are: Kashmir dispute as I see it

·Different perspective on Kashmir

·JKLF visit to Pakistan Administered Kashmir

·Kashmir Needs Change of Heart

·If not self - determination then what?

·Emma Nicholson report- who has won?

·Struggle for independence, Jihad or proxy war (Introduction by Baroness Emma Nicholson)

·

Future publications

Following books were completed some time ago and shall be published in near future:

In Search of Freedom - My visit to Srinagar and Islamabad

Kashmir and Partition of India

A brief background

Dr Shabir Choudhry was born in a small village called Nakker Shimali (near Panjeri) in District Bhimber, Azad Kashmir. He went to UK in 1966, and like other people from the region, holds a dual nationality. He left secondary school in 1970 with no qualifications and began his life as a textile worker.

In 1975 he started part time studies and passed Matriculation from Government High School Panjeri, passed ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels from UK, and resumed full time degree course in 1981, and passed BA (Hons) in Politics and History in 1984.

He continued full time and part time jobs until he got his Mphil. He passed his PGCE (Post Graduates Certificate in Education) in 1990, and then started full time job as a Lecturer. Due to health problems he resigned from teaching in 1999. At present he is self - employed, provides private tuition, translation and interpretation and consultancy.

Through out his adult life he has actively worked for the cause of Kashmir, and even during long illness he effectively carried out his responsibilities as a leader of the JKLF, a ‘prolific writer’ and consistent campaigner of Rights Movement and peace in Jammu and Kashmir and South Asia.